Stuffed animals weren't given to Jazmin Ortiz growing up. They were sentenced.

Her father, Manuel Ortiz, would take one of her stuffed animals, usually Simba or Nala from “The Lion King,” and hang it from the living room ceiling by a string.

Jazmin would toddle toward it, gripping her 2-year-old hands around a junior racket, and scream a laugh that would fill the house as she forehanded and backhanded the stuffed lion straight back to the Pride Land.

The exercise marked the beginning of an experiment that would last past Jazmin's 15th birthday. Ortiz, who has been a tennis instructor for 25 years, wanted to see if he could train his daughter, now a 17-year-old senior at Granite Hills High, to play the sport professionally.

“It was the best 13 years of my life — because I got to spend time with her,” Ortiz said. “I don't know if she felt the same away. It was a lot of work for her.”

After Jazmin completed the second grade, Ortiz began home-schooling his daughter. The setup seemed ideal. The family had relocated from Oak Park to El Cajon and was building a tennis court in the backyard.

Jazmin's routine, which included an average of six to seven hours of tennis a day, started when she woke up at 6 a.m. An hour later, after breakfast, she received her schooling until 11 a.m. or noon. Following lunch, the day's first tennis lesson began. Father and daughter conducted drills in the backyard for a few hours. After a quick meal, there was another hour of drills before they left the house for various tennis clubs in the county where she faced live competition.

“I always had the feeling in the back of my mind, ever since at least 13, that it wasn't for me,” Jazmin said. “But I kept going along with it.”

Jazmin would sometimes stop playing tennis full time, only to start up again as she debated with herself over what she wanted.

She loved the competition but ultimately decided she didn't have enough passion in the sport to pursue a professional career. At 5-feet-2, she believed her height was an obstacle she would be unable to overcome.

At 15, Jazmin told her father she had decided to give it up.

“We both saw it coming,” Jazmin said. “I was starting to realize it wasn't going to work out. So why am I making myself do home school, which is just ruining my social life, and why am I playing for nine hours when it's not going to lead to anything?”

Ortiz said he understood.

Jazmin, who enrolled at Granite Hills as a sophomore, stopped striving to become a pro but didn't turn her back on the sport. She is in her second year on the Eagles varsity squad, which leads the Grossmont Hills League. With an undefeated record, Jazmin has emerged as the East County's top high school player.

It's the best of both worlds for Jazmin, who can enjoy the competition of high school tennis and the team environment that comes with it.

She said she doesn't regret the years spent home-schooling.

“I think it formed me as a person, gave me my work ethic,” said Jazmin, who carries a 4.0 unweighted grade-point average. “I just really like how I am as a person.”

Her father couldn't be more proud.

“The truth is that seeing her happy is what makes me feel good, that she's happy,” Ortiz said. “She's following her own path. I have nothing but respect and admiration for her. Any positive attribute that you could ask for in another person, I think she has it. I could not ask for a better daughter.”